omeone can spread some light on a situation regarding Puget Sound Energy (PSE). My wife and I have lived on Whidbey for approximately 10 years. During the first five the first five years we lived here the PSE repairs were administered by the workforce network in Oak Harbor. Whenever a windstorm came through the island and the power was interrupted on occasions the power would be off as long as three days or more.

It was so bad that I invested in a generator to fix my problem. A few people that were employed by PSE, I spoke with, talked about the massive amounts of overtime that was generated because of the outages. For the last five years or so since PSE eliminated the local workers and chose to subcontract out the repairs, power outages are repaired within hours, not days. The longest I have been without power is three hours in the last five years.

Is it imaginable that the old network intentionally slowed the repair in order to accumulate overtime? I am just curious and not trying to offend anyone, however three days versus three hours speaks for its self. I was a consultant that specialized in downsizing and streamlining business that were in trouble due to cash flow. I found out that almost always it was attributed to abuse in overtime pay for employees. We all know that company costs are eventually passed on to the consumer. Any thoughts or facts on this are appreciated.

William Ludlow

Oak Harbor